


On Angel's Wings

by Elfy (elfowlgirl)



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 06:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6040849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfowlgirl/pseuds/Elfy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Aesling is a guardian angel, and encounters a demon on her first assignment. Oneshot. (Originally posted to Tumblr on February 3, 2015)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Angel's Wings

It arrives on a midsummer’s wind - a wisp of ethereal white smoke, curling through the air, tracing letters for her in a familiar language. Slowly, it forms. A name. It’s _only_ a name, but it’s all she needs.

Wordlessly, Aesling leaves for Earth.

—

It’s night when she arrives. The boy is leaning over a kitchen table, pencil in one hand. The half-finished remains of his dinner sit beside him, and he is still wide awake and working, apparently ignorant to the crescent moon already peeking into the blackened sky.

 _It’s homework,_ she muses as she looks over the sloppily written numbers. It’s all correct, even with a few questions missing the work, save for number four. She gently puts one hand on the boy’s chin and tilts it so ever slightly, waiting for his eyes to suddenly grow wide as he realizes his mistake. “Oh! It must be getting late… Number four is 375, not 243.”

“Excuse me,” calls a voice behind Aesling, sounding both amused and annoyed, if that was at all possible. “But I’m afraid you’re intruding on my assignment.”

“On _your_ assignment?” She turns around.

There’s a demon, lying like a cat on his back on top of the refrigerator. He watches her with bright eyes, his tail and his mouth each curled as he looks at her. “Of course. I was here first.”

“Time?”

“5467889290.”

“…5467889290.”

He hums to himself for a moment. “Well. I’m not sure if that’s ever happened before, an angel and a demon being assigned to the same mortal at the exact same time… And we can’t fight it out, as there’s no combat allowed on duty.”

“What’s the phrase?” She asks, somewhat rhetorically. “‘An angel and a devil on each shoulder’?”

“Demon,” he corrects, as if she’s not aware. “Coexistence. Not a bad plan at all.”

They each look back at the boy, who has since fallen asleep. His pencil lies sideways beside his completed homework, ponytail dipping into the remains of his bowl of soup.

Aesling suppresses a grin. The demon snickers.

—

Their partnership works surprisingly well, Aesling finds. She whispers her advice into the boy’s ear whenever he’s at a crossroads, and the demon - whose name she dare not ask, she knows the power of names - nudges his hand ever so slightly when he finds the need. Mostly it’s been knocking over the boy’s bottle of glue onto the kid next to him in art class. The first time, he offers stammered apologies and the kid does not mind. By the third time, the kid does nothing but glare, and he’s sent to the principal’s office.

He doesn’t seem to mind, usually. Tonight, though, it’s been a less than stellar day. She stands guard in front of his door, like she does every night, but she can hear him even through the thick oak. It’s a nightmare, at least, and night terrors at most.

The demon strolls up, off having done who-knows-what, and gives her a reassuring look, resting one hand on the doorknob before she can stop him. “Let me help.”

 _He’s a demon, but so far he’s shown no harmful intent…_ Silently, she nods, and stands aside, though her wings flair out in what she hopes is a threatening gesture. If he dares to go so far as to break the rules, so will she.

He ducks into the room, sliding up beside the boy on the bed, and leaving the covers undisturbed. He pulls out a guitar, though Aesling has no idea from where. The demon picks gently at the strings, strums a few loose chords, then, quietly, begins to sing.

It’s a beautiful song. Aesling thinks it nonsense, at first, or a language she’s never heard, before recognizing her own - the beautiful tongue of Angelic.

_“The sun, they say, is a truth,_

_That it will rise ev'ry morn._

_Though if it were not to shine_

_Wouldn’t the birds still sing?_

_The things that happen_

_Far beyond our control._

_We must make the best of them_

_As we’ve our whole life before us,_

_Before us.”_

She can, for but a moment, see words wrapped around his arms. A shining halo above his head, and dark wings spread out behind him, flickering like the memories of a time long past.

The boy is sleeping restfully now. The demon looks at her, and she gives an affirmative nod. He simply smiles.

—

There’s a fire.

Aesling has no idea where it started, or how, but suddenly the house is engulfed in flames. The boy is sleeping soundly, and though she pushes at him, he does not move to wake.

Smoke trickles quickly into the space, engulfing the bedroom and everything in it. It occurs to her that what she is experiencing now is _fear_. She has no idea what to do. She is scared.

She waits for a minute, hoping that something will happen. That he will awake, that people will arrive to save him, but it does not. She even looks out for the demon, but he is mysteriously absent in the midst of this catastrophe.

The thought crosses her mind that this fire could be _his_ fault, though the image of the words, the halo, the wings, still weigh heavily.

She traces the same words, wrapped around each of her arms in the cryptic Angelic language, and repeats them under her breath.

_“To guard and protect, to care and to love, to guide and to gather, to hope and to help.”_

So she does something she was never taught, never considered. She wraps her hands around him, wishing, praying.

She flickers.

Aesling moves almost sideways, from the spiritual to the material. She helps him off the bed, cradling him in her arms, pulls him through the door, and gets as close to the entrance of the house as she can before whatever power she’s drawn on fades.

She kneels beside the boy. There is someone else in the house, she knows - _Veronis?_ Their name is lost to her, and she cannot help them. This boy is her charge, and she has done all she can, for the time being.

She simply wraps her wings around him, as if she could shield him from the world. And she waits.

_“Hey, hey, there’s a kid in here!”_

_“He’s breathing. Any further inside the house and he might not’ve made it.”_

_“Looks like he’s got a real guardian angel looking after him.”_


End file.
